Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is recruited against her will to be a "sparrow", a seducer trained in the Russian security service. Dominika learns to use her body as a weapon, but struggles to maintain her sense of identity during the dehumanizing training process. Finding her strength in an unfair system, she shows herself to be one of the most solid agents of the program. Her first target is Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), a CIA official who leads the agency's most confidential infiltration into Russian secret services. The two young agents fall into a spiral of attraction and deception that threatens their careers, their loyalties and the security of their respective countries.